


what we won't say

by fated_addiction



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Romance, and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma believes in vicious cycles. They are mostly her own. (coda to <i>Manhattan</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	what we won't say

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with this show that keeps me watching, and then I stop watching, and then I start watching again. Anyways, I like Emma and Neal like I like dysfunction and so here we are. I have a lot of feelings as per usual.

Emma's hands won't stop shaking.

It's stupid, it's _so_ stupid. Her fingers twitch. Her palms sweat. She swears her knees are going to buckle out if she doesn't move away from the window and the fire escape.

"Stop looking at _me_ ," she snaps at Gold.

He hums. His gaze stays steady. She gives him her back. Two guilty parents; two peas in a pod.

"You and --" his tone shifts to amusement "-- my son?"

"It's none of your business."

"It makes things all the more interesting," he says. "Don't you think?"

"I didn't _ask_ you."

She moves to sit. Neal has a couch against one of the walls. It's neat, too neat. There are no pictures. There are no paintings on the walls, save for some jazz print that obscures a corner. It's Neal, it's very Neal, and reads _always ready to leave_. When she sits, the leather lurches underneath her jeans. She rubs her palms into her knees.

They are still outside.

Henry's outline hits the window. He looks so small, suddenly. His shoulders are hunched. Neal's hand is too wide over his head. Wisps of Henry's hair sneak through his fingers. She's always seen it, you know -- bits of Neal, more and more. But she has never thought about this moment. She never thought about seeing Henry again either. This moment, this particular moment, was never really one that was supposed to cross her mind; Henry and Neal, Neal and Henry, it's starting to shape as something too real.

She weaves her fingers into her jacket. Gold moves from his place by the window and comes to sit next to her. The couch sinks under both their weight. Henry's ears are ringing through her ears: _you are just like her_ and Emma feels sick.

"Stop," she says, half-heartedly.

"I didn't say anything." Gold's cane hits the floor. "I do like puzzles though, considerably complicated ones at that."

The hidden meaning is sharp. She doesn't touch it. The lies are weaving together though and her brain is fuzzy. She tries not to think, but then there's her instinct and the rules. Family is family.

"He left me."

The words are bold. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her eyes squint and she sees Neal move around. He holds Henry by their shoulders. They are going to have to go back.

Gold says nothing. Emma swallows the sharpness.

"It's all a vicious cycle," she mutters, and she pushes herself to stand. Her arms are defensive; they wrap at her chest. "Isn't it? I feel like an angry child again and I just -- I hate --"

Her gaze meets Gold's. She misses Mary Margaret. She doesn't know if she could take her mother's gaze, the too wide eyes and her father, standing over her shoulder. It's all about the equation that comes with sympathy. Emma is not good at being sympathetic. She is not good at receiving it either. 

Gold manages to lean into his knees. His expression shifts and clouds. She could read the lie then and there, but she chooses not to. This is dangerous. This is more than dangerous; a favor is a favor and her word is her word, but bring Henry here, like this, this was all too much of a terrible idea.

"You don't need to know," she finishes.

"It's all too charming as it is," Gold replies. That measure of amusement is back and it's steady. "Irony is like that, you know."

It's then that Henry and Neal burst back into the apartment. Henry goes to stand with her, but he doesn't look at her. Neal eyes them both and then turns his gaze to Gold. It's impassive and it's spiteful and there is measure of both who is and who _she_ knows staring there.

Gold still stands and holds his hands up.

"There's a bar around the corner," he says and the message is too clear: he's coming back. Neal grits his teeth. Henry's feet shuffle. Emma's ears are ringing.

"Whatever," Neal says.

This is all he says.

 

 

-

 

 

Emma knows they will go back.

This isn't a matter of when or where or even _how_. But when this part ends, they will return to Storybrooke because this is the right thing to do and it's Henry's home. The town has already engrained itself in her. It pulls at her throat. It feels sharp and disorienting. She even feels protective about all of them. She will not go as far to call it _home_. She's never really called anything home, after all.

But Henry goes to sleep, in Neal's room; it's mostly because they have nowhere else to stay for the night and really, she was hoping that everything would be a bust and the favor would be paid in full. She did not think any further than that.

She stays on that couch though. She cannot bring herself to look at Henry in Neal's bed, even for a reassurance. Her jacket sits somewhere in the kitchen, behind some chair. 

Neal comes out after. Henry only mumbled her goodnight.

"So," he says.

"So," she echoes.

"I'm pissed." Her head snaps up. Her eyes go wide and then narrow. She feels them prickle in the corners and tries to swallow.

"There's that," she nods.

"I want to be pissed," he says too, and underneath there, it sits: _it's complicated_ and all she wants to go and say is no shit because it would be an Emma thing to say and she hasn't said any Emma things for awhile. It's too much of a nuisance, feeling herself change.

"Except you shouldn't be," she murmurs. Her voice is too quiet to seem unsteady. "Henry is the only one that gets to be angry. I _get_ why Henry is angry. But you made your decisions, just like I made mine, and I guess that's all there is to it."

"Not everything is that simple, Em."

He says it and she hates him. She hates him because he sounds exhausted and she doesn't want to understand why he's so exhausted. But she's spent the last hour or two putting everything together and understanding that kind of exhaustion too clearly. She wants to hate him, but then, now, she's already started to see Henry's face.

And it's handsome, Neal was always too handsome, too real. Her gaze follows the line of his jaw. She traces that stupid, _stupid_ sliver of a scar she remembers him getting. It was before Henry, before prison, and there was a bar fight that he just jumped in and it was stupid hot in New York. She mostly remembers the after and the back of his car, where the weight of the leather was just sticky enough and she finally, finally let herself have Neal.

"No," she agrees finally. She clears her throat.

"No?"

Emma shrugs. She drops her head back. Her gaze sticks to the ceiling. There is loud laughing outside his window; they left it open. She forgets just how noisy New York is.

"What do you want me to say?"

He sighs loudly. 

"I said it all. I said more than enough. Henry's upset. I feel like a total asshole for being an awful human being. But you _left_."

"I had no choice," Neal says, and there's an edge.

"Sure, sure." She pushes herself to sit up. "You had no choice. Just like I had no choice but to give Henry up. Just like my parents had no choice to stick me in some stupid wardrobe and this all became a _thing_. That's bullshit, and you know it."

"No one's telling you that you can't be mad."

Her eyes darken. "I didn't say that."

He laughs and it's sharp, just like she remembers it. He shifts and moves to sit in front of her. His knees edge just in front of hers. The coffee table makes a sound.

"You have to consider _everyone_ ," he tells her. "Everyone's grounded in by someone else's choice. Your choices are always going to be a product of someone else's. Maybe it's too late to be different. Maybe it's not. But isn't it why we run? Isn't that why you were always trying not to be found? I'm not going to make excuses for what I did, Em. I knew exactly what I was doing. I would do it again, but --"

"No, no," she cuts him off. She hits his leg with his knuckles. "You don't get to do that. We're not talk about _your_ father," she spits and he flinches and it's like an old habit, knowing when to read guilt on his face, "and we're not talking about my parents or this stupid, ridiculous curse that just made everything complicated anyway. I lied to Henry, but I did not lie to you. I will not take the fall for your stupid wounded face."

Her mouth slams shut and purses. She holds her lips together so tightly. Her hands drop and her nails dig into her cushion. He stares at her with that same, heavy unreadable gaze. She does not see Gold in it, but that will nothing more than an afterthought.

Emma's ears are still ringing though. In the bedroom, she hears Henry moving. The nightmares, she thinks. She edges to corner. She feels caged. Her breathing starts to push into her teeth.

"I'm not sorry," he murmurs, but that's a lie. She feels it and there is no longer any color in her face.

He is leaning over her knees now. His hand reaches out. His palm slips into her cheek. She feels his fingers in her hair. The apartment is too cold, too steady. There is nothing right about this.

Her lips still part and Neal exhales. His breath sticks to her jaw. When he leans in, she is already so close. Her eyes shut and she feels her teeth snap into her lip.

"You still say whatever you want." He might kiss her, she thinks. She might let him. "It's still that kind of thing with you, huh?"

He laughs. She feels the sound against her mouth. She tastes him without having to kiss him. That's more unnerving than everything else. He seeps back into her skin and her senses and it's all too like he never even left to begin with. 

"Sure thing."

It doesn't matter who moves first. Know that she doesn't. She slouches later, deeper into the couch. He moves from the coffee table to sit next to her. If he's too close, she can't bring herself to say anything. There isn't really anything to say. He keeps himself like this and she lets him, or maybe she lets herself _let_ him. It's all catching up and she still can't stop seeing his face, seeing him next to Henry. This may be what breaks her, in the end, and she hates that. She hates that it's going to be him because Neal will always be the biggest memory.

She is going to bring him back from New York.

 

 

-

 

 

In the morning, Gold stands outside waiting for them.

They will not stay for breakfast. She will not get to tell Henry about her favorite diner around the corner or remember to have coffee before their flight and another rental. Gold likes his promises.

He leans against the bars to the entrance, his gloves fitting against the steal as if he were fascinated by some metaphor he only gets to enjoy. She still sees him first. Henry stays too close to Neal and she flexes her fists for the third time since they stepped out of the elevator.

"Now you have to come back," Henry says, and it's so matter of fact. She looks at down at him, watching his eyes brighten at the way Neal sort of shudders and smiles. There is no conversation about forgiveness. She doesn't expect that any time soon.

But it's like this:

Henry grabs Neal's hand, who in turn, grabs her arm and she can feel herself stay close. Their elbows lock. His fingers dust over her wrist and then draw away. They must look strange. They must look like something; Neal's non-answer seems equally distant and untouched. Henry must already understand.

They call this a catalyst and not a family, she thinks. Another number in the entire line.

But when Gold smiles, it's uneasy, and at the flash of his teeth, yellow and sharp, Emma remains equally impassive. 

There are too many monsters to be under the bed.


End file.
